Knitting and pets.

Posts tagged ‘AKC’

A while ago a coworker asked me if I would make a baby sweater for her friend. I said I definately would but she wanted to find out if her friend knew what she was having so I could make the sweater gender specific. It took a while of waiting and asking, but she finally got to talk to the friend and found out she was having a boy. She thought that the boy would probably have dark hair and eyes so she wondered if a brown sweater would be nice. She had also mentioned blue, so I decided it would be nice to combine the two, they do go very well together. Originally I was going to do solid brown with blue stripes but I couldn’t find a nice, inexpensive, worsted weight brown. I already had the blue, but the brown wasn’t happening. I did, however, find a nice variegated blue and brown and thought it would look just adorable. I showed it to my coworker and she loved it, which made me happy, of course.

Next I needed a pattern. My coworker had said she wanted one like the sweater I made as a gift for another coworker who recently became a father. I had issues with that pattern though so I didn’t want to use the same one again. I found another one, a hooded toddler sweater that buttons. I decided on that one but I didn’t want a full button up so I decided I was going to try and make a huge change in the pattern. I wanted 2 buttons and then the rest to be pullover. Figuring out how to do it took a bit of thought since I’m not yet an expert on things like this, having only done socks without an actual pattern before. I decided on an action plan and went with it. Throughout the process of knitting this sweater I had serious doubts about how it was going to look. I was afraid I had really messed it up, added too many stitches, gone too far down before joining in the round… it was very nerve wracking.

After about a week of knitting I was done… completely done, and it looks AWESOME!

The modifications I made are as follows:

The same row as seperating the sleeves and casting on for the underarms, cast on another eight at the end of the row (the front) and then join to work in the round. Continue working the pattern as given except it is now in the round, not back and forth. (I did the same for the sleeves, they were supposed to be worked flat then seamed but I HATE seaming so I did them in the round too.) Then you pick up the stitches along the right hood and front (I did it in multiples of 4, then skipped one, worked perfectly) and knit 5 rows then make 2 button holes (mine were cast off 2 stitches and cast them back on in the next row.) The row that I cast off the stitches for button holes I started short rows to make the button bands wider than the hood ribbing. Knit to where hood meets body, turn and knit to end, turn knit to where hood meets body, purl 2 from hood, knit 2 from hood, turn knit to end, knit to gap, purl 2, knit 2, turn, knit to end, turn, cast off all stitches (including hood).
I did the same on the other side but started the short rows one row earlier and knit one complete row after short rows before casting off. (This is because you are working in the other direction this time.)